Greetings, Friends ~

My book is nearing completion as my deadline approaches. This work is not yet formally edited.

Be well,

Jana

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CHAPTER FOUR
Light and Darkness

In every storm, either the sun or the moon will force its light through even the darkest clouds. Gentle rain falling this side of sunlight casts the most beautiful colors imaginable, and a rainbow is the result of just one, single drop. In a time immediately following a significant loss, you may not see it.

When they roll in, we can focus on the cold rain coming down, or we can search for the light behind it. The light does still exist. With it, it brings hope of new life that grows abundant after the air has been swept clean. It is easier to breathe after a storm passes. But it may be awhile before one remembers that good things stayed intact. It took a long time for me to shift my focus after Lewis’ death.

Early on, my experience was that nothing would get better. I believe that is the same for most people who experience the death of someone close to them.

The time following my son’s passing was filled with my daughter and me at home together, keeping everything perfectly quiet. The brain can only process so much at a time, and we were both trying to get our heads around what happened.

Alexis needed to return to school so she didn’t fall behind. Just months prior, she’d started her high school Junior year on crutches due to some significant medical issues which were new to her. She hadn’t even completely healed from her last surgery when her brother died.

Unfair.

Those were times that seemed like the most brutal of days, filled with misery and pain that would not end. So much emotional pain, in fact, that one cannot imagine it. Were it not for my daughter and family, I would have preferred to just stay back in the moments where my son would forever be frozen in time. I did not want to carry on or move forward. It was simply too hard.

I quickly realized that I had an unsolvable problem. This could not be undone. It would not be resolved. It could not be fixed. The pain was not leaving, and grief had a tight grip on me.

Sleep continued to elude me. When I did fall asleep, I noticed that my dreams were no longer filled with both my daughter and my son. He was absent. Even recurring dreams of my past years with both of my kids had changed. Now, it was only me and my daughter in those same dreams. How on earth could that be? It was confusing to me, given the stigma of religion and suicide. Why was he all of a sudden absent in my dreams? That was beyond cruel.

There came a night when I begged aloud for Lewis to visit me, if only in my mind while I slept. I pleaded to feel his energy so that I knew he had continued on in some way. I asked God, my higher power or whatever was left of goodness to send me a sign that he had, in fact, gone somewhere. I desperately needed that confirmation of what I believed. Yet, there was just silence. I could not feel anything except pain, guilt and sickness.

He was gone.

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